April 2016 Meeting Minutes

Greetings – approximately 31 in attendance at the meeting.
Jim Browder called our meeting to order in the Eureka meeting room

Announcements / Share Table:
2016 RAS Metro Science Fair Award Winners:
• Nicole Teichner, Godwin, Probability of the SMBH Intercepting Earth: Nicole combined the formulas for gravitational force and the radius of a black hole’s event horizon, to compute the probability of this object intercepting the earth’s orbit.
• Camille Yoke, Maggie Walker, Constructive Interference of Seismic Surface Waves: Camille used a large spherical balloon filled with water to simulate the surface waves created when a moving object, like an asteroid, strikes a large planetary body. She used video photography to show that intercepting waves on the opposite side of the impact can create a geographic deformity.
• Claire Anderson, Clover Hill, The Effect of the Distance from Richmond City on the Visibility of Stars: Claire photographed stars at difference distances from Richmond in order to assess sky darkness as a function of distance from Richmond.

Tyler Hutchison astroimaging: Tyler and RAS were mentioned in a great article on the Science Museum in Richmond Family Magazine. The Science Museum is planning to open a new exhibit called ‘Speed,” expected to open this summer. Tyler’s images are viewable at https://tylerhutchisonastrophotography.wordpress.com/

Categories

Solar Eclipse 2017

The big event of 2017 is going to be a total solar eclipse on Aug. 21. It’s the first total solar eclipse visible from the continental United States in nearly four decades. But, it’s only going to be visible in certain locations. the web sitespace.com has a very nice video of where you’ll be able to see it.

For us Virginians, that means travel to Tennessee, far western N. Carolina, or S. Carolina.